"I always try to have the lead-off single from my albums be a parody of some major pop culture event, and since I had a sneaking suspicion that people just MIGHT be interested in a new Star Wars movie, I decided to plan the release of my album around the release of The Phantom Menace... and cross my fingers."

Among Star Wars fans, Yankovic is also known for his Star Wars-themed song parody "Yoda", as well as a scene in the video of his hit single White & Nerdy in which Al is shown making a back alley purchase of a bootlegged VHS of The Star Wars Holiday Special.

After getting Don McLean's permission to parody "American Pie" in 1998, Al begun composing the song, given the lead time involving in creating albums forced the song to be ready by March 1999 - two months before The Phantom Menace's film's release. Lucasfilm declined Yankovic a look at the script due to the high secrecy campaign of the film, so the musician had to search "all the leaked info I could about the movie from all the various Star Wars websites (TheForce.net was particularly helpful), and was able to piece together the basic plot of the movie." Still, the final mix on "The Saga Begins" was held until after Yankovic had seen the movie in an advanced charity screening.

The lyrics are surprisingly accurate even though the song was released before the movie. According to Yankovic, everything was gleaned through Internet spoilers. Yankovic paid $500 to view an advance screening after writing the song, but most of his lyrics were correct, so he made minor changes; the only major change he had to make after the screening of The Phantom Menace was that Anakin did not tell Amidala that he was going to marry her, like Yankovic originally thought.

The main inaccuracy is that Obi-Wan stayed at the Queen's Royal starship after their arrival on Tatooine, rather than going with Qui-Gon and Padmé to search for a new part for the ship. Thus, he didn't witness the podrace firsthand, and didn't meet Anakin until he arrived at the starship with the rest of the group.

The video begins in a desert, supposedly on the planet Tatooine. Yankovic, dressed like Ewan McGregor's Kenobi, walks until he finds Darth Sidious playing the piano. Yankovic uses the Force to get a steel guitar, and in the second verse he reappears performing in a Mos Eisley cantina look-alike. In the last verse, he returns to the desert, and in the last chorus, lots of "Obi-Wans" appear singing, a possible reference to the Clone Wars that would follow.

Some Star Wars characters can be seen, like Yoda, Amidala and Mace Windu, dancing strangely. But Yoda does not move.

The upper half of the pianist's face is always covered by the hood of the robe that he's wearing much like the Sith LordDarth Sidious. When asked why, Al stated that "They didn't want to scare small children.", a reference to the playful bullying of Al's pianist, Rubén Valtierra, commonly used in his live shows.